Ordinary Men
by Cyrelia J
Summary: France joins Austria for a smoke outside on New Year's Eve. Austria watches the world go by and France just watches him. A bittersweet melancholy romance developing slowly over tobacco. "He loves me, he loves me not." France/Austria with brief mentions of others and background Germany/Austria.
1. Ordinary Men

Disclaimer: I don't own Hetalia or any of its characters. I'm also not making any money off of this.

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><p>Eyes closed, leaned back against the cold brick wall, Austria doesn't see the figure approach from the right. Ear buds instead of earmuffs deaden him to the world- he doesn't hear the crunch of footsteps in the snow either. A long cigarette nestled preciously between his bare fingers finds its way between his lips. Austria takes a long deep inhalation, chest rising beneath the heavy coat. He breathes out slowly, warm breath intermingling with hot smoke, billowing around like the fog in an old movie. France smiles as he stands next to him under the overhang of the old house- Germany's old house to be specific.<p>

Austria feels the presence next to him- smells drink and roses and something else that is just unpleasantly France. He sighs, and looks at the bricks beneath his feet thoughtfully. Out of the corner of his eye he sees the bright flame of the match as he lifts the cigarette to his lips again a touch more quickly.

"You're going to miss the great finale," France says as he watches him with a hint of tipsy amusement. Austria is visibly irritated as he removes one of the ear buds to better hear. The moment he does he hears the loud bass thumping through the glass pane next to him and he glances unconsciously inside to the loud party. Austria snorts looking away again before he catches another sight of North Italy trying to feed Germany a small biscotti.

"Yes, heaven forbid I miss Ludwig telling me that kissing me is like licking the bottom of an ashtray." He taps a few ashes to the ground, leaning harder, shifting feet uncomfortably. "I don't know why on earth I told you that. Doubtless you'll just use it against me some time when you're sober and vindictive." France chuckles softly as he too takes a drag of an unfiltered _Gaulois_.

"What makes you think I'm not sober now, little master?"

"Your breath for one... And one would think after all these centuries you'd move on to calling me something more creative. The rest of the world has, after all... moved on, I mean," he finishes softly.

"Ah, but not the darling little prince, _non?_" France moves to pinch his cheek. Austria slaps his hand away out of habit.

"There you go, baiting me again."

"Perhaps, Roderich for tonight, for the New Year, let's say I make a resolution. How about I am a complete non master baiting gentleman."

Austria chokes, nearly dropping the cigarette, half doubled over as the smoke burns his lungs. France uncharacteristically doesn't laugh but instead sighs and looks up at the bright snow falling sky.

"You are a..." he coughs again violently for a spell. "You are nothing but a..." He sucks in another breath and swallows, looking dazed, seeing spots dancing in front of his eyes. "Forget it." Austria moves to put the other earbud back in place. France catches his wrist meeting the narrowed eyes that turn to him with a look that's far too sober.

"Forgive me, that was beneath me."

"I didn't think there was anything that was." He turns away fixing his attention deliberately into the window watching North Italy dancing around with Germany. He doesn't see Prussia. He does see Hungary and Poland dancing and he sees America seemingly engaged in an odd wrestling match with himself in the center of the living room. The music blares far too loudly.

"Perhaps you?"

"What?" It takes a moment before Austria fully registers what France just said. He doesn't turn back, only watches the lot inside turning on the television holding their drinks. "Don't be stupid," he snaps without any heat. He takes a nervous drag on the cigarette. "You know I loathe the very sight of you."

"But of course, the world goes by, and the little master stands watching from behind the glass." France looks to the snow falling around them as he brings the cigarette to his lips thoughtfully. "It's like we're in a snowglobe, isn't it?"

"Did Ludwig put you up to this?" Austria takes a step back when Germany puts an awkward hand to North Italy's face, seeing those eyes searching him out in the snowfall outside. He ducks his head staring at his boots. "I've told him more than once there's nothing to feel guilty about. It isn't as if we're just two ordinary men in the world. It isn't as if I begrudge him his more... festive partners. Perhaps you ought to go back inside already. You're making me unusually maudlin."

Austria taps the cigarette again. He feels the heat of France's body behind him realizing only now that he isn't wearing a coat. Nonetheless the fingers that brush his cheek from behind, that trail the length of the cold write to the right earbud are warm.

"What are you listening to?" France doesn't wait for a response before putting the small bud in his own ear.

"Stardust," they both say at the same time. Austria feel a tickle in his throat as he takes another puff of the cigarette.

"It's not what I would have expected of you." There's a small upturn to the side of Austria's mouth.

"I suppose not but I enjoyed listening to it during the war. It was forbidden of course. But then again so were a lot of things. So are a lot of things now." He looks at the cigarette between his fingers. "I never would have imagined this would be one of them. Funny how the world works, isn't it? But perhaps if we _were_ just ordinary men it wouldn't matter."

Austria looks inside once more before defiantly putting the cigarette out on the damp brick of the house. He pinches off the cold cherry and drops it in the ground putting the last half back in his pocket so it doesn't go to waste.

"Perhaps I would live here then. Maybe I _could_ live here." He holds his hand back above his shoulder not turning to face France. "May I have that back."

"Are you coming back inside then?" Austria feels the warm smoky breath blow past his face.

"Does it matter?" He can see the clock inside reading only a few short minutes to go. The earbud is place back into his hand and he puts it back in his ear warm. He's had enough of France. _"Though I dream in vain,"_ echoes in his head. Austria laughs softly. "Go back inside, Francis. You should be able to find someone to kiss before midnight. Perhaps if fairy tales are true you'll even turn back into a prince." Austria's hand reaches up and brushes the cold brick as he moves to take one more step towards the large window watching inside as if everyone were part of a grand shadow box existing only in his own head. He starts when he feels a hand over his.

"You really must be drunk. Hasn't Gilbert told you that _Eisriesenwelt _is my heart? The fool has certainly said it to me often enough." His fingers curl on the brick and he jerks his hand away turning back around to shove past France if need be. That _gaulois_ burns brightly between his lips. It's the first time that Austria has looked at him all night. His eyes are clear, his hands lazily going back into the pockets of his jeans. Austria pulls out both earbuds shoving them in the pocket of his coat next to the music player. France hasn't spoken a word yet. Austria yanks the cigarette from his mouth and throws it to the snowy ground. "Dammit, I'm not some ridiculous pity conquest and I'll have you know that it's not me who's the-" Austria swallows when France just quietly raises his right hand, warm and gently calloused to the side of his face studying him like a master sculptor beholding his creation. "This is absolute nonsense and I won't be made fool of if Gilbert or Alfred or-" He stops talking when his head is turned, tilted, repositioned, France intently looking at every part of his face save his eyes with that deceptively lazy countenance. "It's... it's not my heart." He kneads at the back of his neck looking down between them to the thin button down shirt France is wearing wetted to translucence. "It's just some... some insignificant part of my lower back, really..."

"Then forget all of it." Austria licks his lips when France speaks again.

"Do you really think it's so easy for our kind to just..." _Ten. _France takes a step forward. _Nine._ Austria takes a step backwards. _Eight. _France takes another step forward. _Seven. _Austria remains where he stands feeling the cold steal his breath. _Six._

"Then let's say tonight that's all that you and I are."

_Three._

"What?"

_Two._

"Ordinary men."

_One._

France leans in and kisses him.

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><p>Note: <em>gaulois <em>is a brand of cigarette

_Eisriesenwelt _is the world's largest ice cave and happens to be located in Austria


	2. Cosmo

Note: This was originally just going to be a one shot but ended up turning into a series of stories instead. Once again outside, France and Austria talk over a cigarette.

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><p>"Do you think I'm cold?" Austria asks the question looking down at the glass blown cylinder between his fingers resentfully. France stands next to him carelessly smoking an unfiltered <em>Gaulois.<em> He gives a soft "hn" of amusement taking a long drag and sees with a quick look to the side that Austria still stares at the electronic cigarette and not him.

"Ask me if I think the seasons change, if the sun rises every morning over the Seine, if the flowers in Marseille-"

"A simple 'yes' would've sufficed," Austria cuts in tersely.

"_Oui_, but not nearly as poetic." France smirks as he takes another drag blowing a small ring. "But I think," he continues with a far more sober expression, "that it is not me that you refer to. Perhaps you should ask if it is Ludwig who finds you cold." Austria snorts taking a hesitant hit of the electronic cigarette, the tip lighting rather prettily in the dusk.

"Unless you and I attended two different meetings today I should think the answer to that should be rather obvious." Austria looks murderously at the e cig in his hand, wrist tense as if he might throw it. "This is for him, you know. This ridiculous offensive contraption..." He runs his fingers through his hair with a frustrated exhalation, takes a moment to once more contemplate the device before shoving it back in his pants pocket, and holds out a hand. "For God's sake give me a real cigarette if you've any decency in you." France chuckles.

"How could gentleman man refuse such an entreaty?" He takes the silver cigarette case from his pocket, taking a moment to look over every pristine white tube before taking one second from the left. France allows Austria to half suspiciously snatch it from his hand just watching him for a moment. "Do you need a light, _monsieur_?" His tone is teasing, Austria taking the time to smell the sweet tobacco before giving a wordless nod. He puts the cigarette between his lips waiting for a lighter that never materializes.

Austria sucks in a breath when France, _Gaulois_ between his own lips leans in and passes the flame from one to the other mere inches from his face. Austria looks at him intensely as if remembering the cold winter air when France kissed him. Heat comes to his face. Austria pulls back quickly with a stammered 'thank you,' and presses his back hard to the building staring ahead purposefully, eyes rapidly blinking. France puts both hands in his pockets, leans back, and enjoys the silence. He listens to Austria breathing next to him, a touch more quickly at first, waiting or it to settle down into long, slow breaths, another languid indulgence of the cigarette. Austria takes that third drag with eyes half shut, fingers trembling just the slightest bit, tongue tasting his lips faintly as he breathes out with just the smallest arch of his back, a near imperceptible rock of his leg. France looks from dawn to duck, watching the sunset once more.

"He takes you far too seriously," France says at last. Austria's face screws into a confusion that France catches with a small amused smile.

"I should certainly hope so," Austria says turning the _Gaulois_ around in his fingers. France shakes his head.

"Ah but he should not. He should not take you so seriously at all." He smokes, letting Austria think about that. "I know better, you see, than to take everything you say with such gravity. It's bad for the digestion," he teases.

"I don't know why I'm even talking to you. You and I never have anything to say to one another. I've always found you tiresome," Austria declares. Inhale, exhale, a touch quicker. France doesn't miss that- he observes the quick puffs coinciding with a quickening nervous pulse.

"You should... how does Alfred say, give him his walking papers? Break up with him."

"You sound like one of those ridiculous magazines."

"Shall I tell you then, fifty ways to drive him wild in bed?" He watches Austria for a reaction and sees his fingers pause on the the cigarette as he stares thoughtfully at the tip. Austria blinks as he slowly lowers it blowing out slowly, a thin stream of smoke watching the traffic. He smiles softly into the sunset that easy brilliant _kirakira_ glitter.

"Perhaps you might show me instead."


	3. Stereo Love

Note: Thanks to all reading and commenting. No real warnings, just a little more bittersweet romance type stuff and a sort of love flow chart amongst several.

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><p>France makes a deep lazy sigh as he leans back against the headboard cigarette in his mouth.<p>

"Do you have any idea how ridiculously cliché you look right now?" Austria looks up at him, laying on his stomach on the bed, resting his head on his arms. His eyes slip open and closed, settling for a half sleepy expression over the frames of his glasses. They're smudged and sticky and half askew. His tone, far from scolding is softly playful as the barest curl of lips can be seen from his half hidden face.

"Perhaps I do these things for your amusement, _non_?" Austria half chuckles, half snorts- a completely undignified near porcine sound- in response, his usually pale complexion flushed rosy pink as he closes his eyes thirty seconds to blissful sticky sleep. He hears France flick the silver zippo lighting the cigarette.

"Do you speak like a walking stereotype for my amusement too? Surely you realize..." Austria yawns. "that everyone else is mocking you."

France laughs softly and finds himself lightly stroking right behind Austria's ear taking a long drag of the unfiltered _Gaulois_. Austria turns into the touch with a hedonistic purr.

"Ah but it is in my nature to be amusing." Austria's eyes open just enough to look at France through bleary eyes. That small turn of his lips blooms brilliantly. He takes a breath about to speak when France makes an unusually intent study of him. Austria feels the faint tremors of sleep pull away to bring him back to full stunned wakefulness when France murmurs softly, "why do you not smile that way for Ludwig?" The smile inverts in an instant and he pushes France's hand away.

"Didn't anyone tell you it's in poor taste to talk about those sorts of things in a situation like this?" France shrugs.

"No less poor than to whisper his name while I'm making love to you." France inhales deeply, sensually. "Mmm but perhaps I can believe I had you so out of your head with ecstasy that you forgot yourself."

France doesn't resist when Austria sits up suddenly and snatches the cigarette from between his fingers.

"Give me that damn thing..." Austria takes a long drag and then there is a metamorphosis of his face turning from irritation to warm smoky bliss. It last a few short moments, turning with two belated blinks, to a screwed up look of pained disgust. He shifts on the white sheets a faint tremor going through his body. He looks down with a small bit of color to his face. "That is..." France chuckles stealing the cigarette back tapping ash into the white ivory ashtray.

"...the last vestiges of a once great empire..." he murmurs softly to himself. Austria doesn't hear him as he squirms, kneeling on the sheets. France swings his legs over the side of the raise king sized bed feeling Austria's weight dipping the bed as he crawls self consciously beside him. He takes a smoke and passes the cigarette to his left. "Shall we flip a coin to see who has the honor of sleeping in the spot?"

"I'm not spending the night." Austria draws warm smoke into his lungs running fingers through his mussed and wild hair. He shakes his head, feeling the sweat of his scalp still weighing down tangles. Austria sighs and stares at the hardwood floor eyes moving to follow the red geometry of the oriental rug. "I should be home..." He takes another drag and hands the cigarette back to France the smoke of the last few puffs passing back from the pull of the open window. Austria's eyes dart almost nervously right and he lets his hand rest lightly on France's upper arm. His fingers are stiff- taking time to relax, waiting to see if France will pull back. Austria swallows. "My clothes... are they still downstairs?"

"They will not have been picked up and laundered by 'the help', little master," France teases as he puts the cigarette out. Austria pulls his hand back, shifting legs out from underneath him.

"They're probably on strike like everyone else in your damn country..." He winces when his bare feet hit the floor and a last slow trickle of sticky wet drizzles a fading line down the inside of his left thigh.

France is already reaching for another _Gaulois_.

"The bathroom is-"

"Just my clothes." Austria's first few steps are shaky- he nearly trips on the rug. He pushes his glasses back up on his face looking to the door and not to France. "That's all I need is my clothes." He stops, absently flexing his hands, standing in front of France staring hard at the stained oak doorframe.

"Is that what you intend? To return to your lover with the scent of another man on you? With the seed of another man held possessively between your legs?" France lights the _Gaulois_ twisting it in his hand, eyes watching the light as if it's the most fascinating thing in the world. "Truly the little master possess a woman's talent for spite."

"I never said I was going back to that home... Francis..." Austria takes a few more slow steps head still down. He lifts it, eyes adjusting to the dark of the hallway, waiting for the room's light to illuminate more than shadows. "I'm going back to my home. It's been far too long since I've been back there."

France's fingers tense around the cigarette and he looks up at Austria's naked back seeing snow falling on the mountain tops.

"Do you even know the way back?" He rises slowly.

"I can find my own way." Austria's shoulders are stiff as he turns his head back around. "Even in the dark I can... I don't always need Ludwig or Gilbert to bring me home." He looks surprised to see France suddenly next to him.

"What if I ask you to stay?" France leans in and kisses the corner of his uncertain mouth. Austria's eyes close gently and he breathes in tobacco and roses. His fingers touch his face where the soft stubble of France's chin had brushed.

"Why on Earth would you ask an impossible thing such as that?" He smiles cynically. "Surely my performance in bed must pale in comparison to-" Austria appears indignant as the end of the cigarette is shoved between his lips to quiet him. He looks at France curiously, turning the rest of his body back around. France shakes his head with a rueful smile.

"I think that I shall ask you again when you understand why." Austria takes a drag on the _Gaulois_ and holds onto it letting the implied invitation sink in.

"My light... in the darkness then," He says raising it with the ghost of a smile. "You don't need to see me to the door, to the train, to anything but the top of the stairs." He turns around abruptly stepping with newfound purpose. France pauses midway to retrieving his robe from behind the door.

"Surely you'll be lost?" he says concerned. Austria smiles into the darkness where it cannot be seen.

"I was born lost," he calls from the other end of the hall, "and take no pleasure in being found."

"Steinbeck," France says caught off guard. He laughs. "I would not have expected such a sentiment from you."

"Then it would seem you have far more to learn about me than you think." The voice disembodied with indefinable emotion retreats down the stairs and France catches himself in the doorway inexplicably drained. He takes a rose from the slender ceramic vase nightstand petals slowly wilting over the ashtray.

France pulls a gentle dying piece letting the wind pull it from his fingers.

"He loves me not..."


	4. Waves

Note: Next part of the series and I don't know if it'll get more or less triangle/quadrangle-ish but thank you everyone reading. I actually had a bit of trouble with this one but I think I worked it out. Still thanks to Edward Maya whose music is the soundtrack for most of this with a little bit of Mr. Probz thrown in. C&C always welcome

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><p>"Ludwig asked me where I was the other night." Those are the first words Austria utters since waking. He looks down at the <em>croissants aux amandes <em>with a frown. The coffee in front of him sits untouched.

"And what did you tell him?" France takes a long drink of espresso before pulling out a cigarette. Austria sighs and pokes at the large pastry.

"There's not going to be any meat, is there?"

"That was not a complaint at dinner, little master" France smirks as flicks his lighter. Austria sits back and crosses his arms with a frosty expression drawing the pale robe closed tightly over his neck. The chill breeze responds in kind whipping France's hair over his face. It blows the flame impossibly awry. He only laughs.

"Must you be so disgusting?" Austria directs the glare to the large pastry on the small painted plate his mouth tight. He crosses a leg.

"You do not wish to speak of it then?" France takes a long drag turning his head to the dewy fields that lie over the balcony. He passes the cigarette to Austria without being prompted.

"I don't know." Austria watches the same pastoral scenery with an even tighter frown. "For God's sake, why don't you unbutton your shirt a bit more and call for the fiddlers while you're at it?" He turns the cigarette in his fingers before shutting his eyes to everything and inhaling deeply hand still reflexively holding the robe closed off. France takes that moment to turn back slightly and look at him out of the corner of one blue eye.

"You should not worry about your large breakfasts. They are bad for the constitution. They make a man ill tempered."

Austria snorts and hands the cigarette back.

"Starving makes a man ill tempered." He drops his guarded hand in favor of viciously pulling off a corner of flaky dough powder lightly dusting his fingers and the table. "Waking to stubbly mange scraping over one's neck makes a man ill tempered." He shoves the croissant in his mouth chewing angrily until the dough becomes sickeningly glutinous. Austria swallows thickly. He opens his mouth but closes it again quickly keeping his eyes to the table. He rips off another piece of pastry not looking at France even as the abused robe is blown further from his neck to his shoulder. France, for his part strokes his chin thoughtfully as he brings the cigarette to his lips.

"Perhaps I should shave… But last night a man hardly seemed to mind the… 'stubbly mange' as it were so perhaps that is not truly what is making a man so ill tempered."

Austria takes a long drink of espresso eyes double blinking quickly as he sets it down.

"This bitter tonic is what's making a man ill tempered…" He straightens the robe only to have it fall defiantly back. "…the insufferable lout across the table..." Austria drums fingers on the white linen of the tablecloth and holds out a shaking hand as he settles for the indignity of the provocatively draping dressing. France passes the cigarette back keeping his eye contact to the hills.

"You've had it out with him then?" he asks softly. Austria is silent for a long while drink smoke drinking until the sun becomes more reality than promise. The shadow of the wall casts a growing darkness over the patio. The stone feels colder beneath his bare feet, slick and organic. He curls his toes against the granite.

"Don't be ridiculous. Two sovereign nations, two historic icons, two… holy relics don't 'have it out' like two ordinary men." Austria nearly drops the cigarette back to France as he picks apart more powdered pastry with two busy hands. "We're far more dignified than that." France snorts smoke from his nostrils in a puff of amusement.

"There is no dignity in love, Roderich. That is the wonder of it. The _je ne sais quoi…_" He smiles playfully. "…unless one is French of course. Everything we do is _tres_ sophisticated." France chuckles with a wave of his hand.

"That sounds like something Alfred would say."

"Matthieu, in a moment of indiscretion," France gives a wink sipping naughty espresso. Austria takes another smoke with a long slow exhale, a jealous bristling feline affectation.

"Congratulations," he says tersely, "Your talent for seducing children is as sharp as ever."

"As is the sting of your tongue, little master." He looks at Austria pointedly. "But you are changing the subject again." Austria is silent, fixating on the plate, counting the petals of the fire sealed flowers. "That moment with Matthieu is but a wisp of a memory, you have my word."

"Don't flatter yourself into thinking that I would ever be jealous of your affairs... Ludwig isn't… jealous of my affairs." Austria's hands continue to pick the pastry apart. "He said he doesn't begrudge me my more… festive partners." His lip curls bitterly. "Perhaps I deserved that." Austria drops crumbled dough like dust scattered to the plate and tablecloth. He looks at France unblinking, face frozen until his eyes go out of focus. "Is that what you wanted me to say?" France puts the cigarette out on the ashtray dotting careful lines on the stained porcelain. He looks down and his fingers move across the small table turning Austria's hand over. Austria follows his eyes to their hands, to calloused fingertips playing over his sticky palm.

"I don't want you to say anything." He traces a circle. "With you I think talking is overly complicated." Austria feels the tickle of nerves and curls his fingers lightly. France traces a figure eight and slowly spells out names down the inside of his arm. Austria looks at him, making a study of his face. His breathing slows to a deep draw drowning in the breeze. He watches France draw every letter his lips moving with a soft breath whispering _"O saisons oh châteaux…"_ He looks with an idleness of passing eternity by the seaside. Austria looks back down to his hand and awkwardly puts his left hand over France's trapping it.

"I prefer to be alone, Francis. I... I don't know how to be with anybody." He holds onto France's stopped hand tightly. "I don't know how to be…" His nails dig in. France merely looks at their hands with his head falling slightly contemplatively to the side. "I don't know how to live… the way that I want to live… if such a thing were even possible. Or dream… maybe I just… don't know how to dream."

"These are the things you should be saying to Ludwig, I think, little master." France smiles a sad winter frosted garden. Austria lets his nails slip, hand clutching just as steadily. Every muscle from palm to pectoral is stiff and straight.

"I'm saying them to you." He squares his jaw and looks at France. His face flinches as if to turn away. Austria lets their eyes meet, squeezing their hands more tightly together. "I'm saying them to _you_, Francis." France sighs, raises his head, leaning in a few tendrils of light closer. He raises his other hand, the back, the smooth polished fingernails sliding over Austria's cheek. There's a rush of warm air in Vienna as the sun also rises. Smooth nail beds skirt the edges of the Neusiedl until ghosting playfully over that one dark spot that is Neusiedl am See. Austria drops his eyes, closing them too easily when France pushes in. He doesn't push him away.

"Ah, see, little master, the mouth she both the most forthright and the most deceptive all at once."

He drops his hand down watching Austria'a eyes rise back to his unguarded, lips still parted in curiosity rather than condemnation. Austria's glasses slide down his nose before he can catch them, eyes violet mimosa before darting to the side self consciously.

"Smile." Austria looks at France's neck.

"I beg your pardon?" France holds up his hands framed, leaning back, drawing a lazy seductive knee up. Austria's eyes flit hummingbird beating down and up again.

"Like I am taking your picture. Like I am painting you for eternity, _mon cher_."

"Like you're talking complete nonsense as usual," Austria answers fingers stealing to the edges of his rob stopping short of pulling it back modestly.

"Like you are not wondering if I am how you say _au naturel_ beneath this robe." France gives a saucy waggles of eyebrows and Austria finds a soft laugh, a gentle smile, a secret Mona Lisa moment escape him.

"And there I have found it again. Not eternity but..."

"But?"

"But why... do you not smile that way for him?" France lowers his hands in front of the broken kaleidoscope watching it fracture. The smile remains. The hand remains. Austria remains, silent. His ankle turns, foot curling until it starts to cramp painfully. Behind the smile his jaw clenches tight until every other thing that France says is buzzed and his entire visage blurs beneath a haze of a rippling pool as if the house were on fire. When he blinks again he realizes it's only the large wind blown flame from the lighter. He opens his mouth to tell France that he's going to catch his hair ablaze if he's not careful.

"I did ...once upon a time..." And he laughs for France now, as he did for Germany then, a soft laugh in a morning just a damning, a scar of a memory. "...and then the world went to hell."


	5. L'Eclair

Note: I guess this walks a line between angst and romance or something else entirely. Thanks to everyone reading for your encouragement this has been a bit of a challenge to write. I don't know if I should ever actually bring in Ludwig or anyone else in person or if that might ruin things but for now more emotional roller coaster and whatnot. Inspired by many songs but big influence from Coldplay's "42".

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><p>It is in the reflection of the old brass mirror that he first sees him. He looks at the image with neither start nor surprise.<p>

"You shouldn't be in here." Austria speaks first. France smiles appearing contrite.

"I let myself in." He opens his mouth to speak but again it is Austria who draws faster. "Nonsense. Lukas would never invite you in. Where is Torsten?"

"The _valet de chambre_?" France shrugs as he walks further into the room closing the large wooden door behind him. "I… how do you say, gave him the day off." Austria's eyes dart down, roaming over the long shirt. "All of them actually. They do not take holidays if I remember." Austria tugs the shirt futilely lower as he stands there. "They serve you until they die, no?" Austria looks down at the shirt and pants he wears- small clothes. "So I let them go... for a few hours at least." Austria's face is red.

"It is the highest honor to serve in this household you of all people should know that. They are hardly here against their will and it is _certainly_ not your place to-"

"Ah but I am ever so poor at keeping these things in memory as you well know." France walks towards him. Austria lets go of the hem to quickly grab his breeches. France stops him with a hand over his.

"Allow me that highest honor then." He takes them from the back of the chair and kneels down before Austria elegantly lowering to one knee. Austria watches the back of his golden head only in the mirror's surface. "This is a privilege I am rarely graced with."

"I would imagine you to be far more adept at _un_doing the fastenings." France's hands however move to gently push the fabric of the long shirt up. His blue eyes on Austria's navel- on Graz- he smiles.

"Like this?" His lips press lightly to the warm skin. Austria stares even harder at the mirror, at the portrait on the wall behind him. He gasps, sucking in that soft breath when France makes a swipe of the tongue down and drags his teeth along mountains to Innsbruck. Austria's eyes close painfully for those few moments vertigo as his head tips skywards. His hands clutch that hem halfway to pushing the shirt back. His feet turn inwards a paltry pivot knees hitting together.

"Don't..."

"If we are the Gods... if we are the dead idols these humans serve then nothing is forbidden to us, no?" Nonetheless, France stops and with slow deliberation takes two white stocking from the chair seat. Austria opens his eyes staring up at the plaster mural of spring on the ceiling. He chews the inside of his gums to a half smile.

"So he says without a single trace of irony..." France's face smooths into careful concentration as Austria allows him to roll each finely woven hose up his legs a hand carefully moving hands to rest on France's shoulders. "I should have thought you'd have forgotten those words... that you'd rather not think of them..." Austria's voice is a whisper to nothing but his own memory. He crosses his arms when France finishes, a finger to _Neusiedl am See_, to just aside that mole. He drops his head stares hard at his own reflection in the mirror. "Is it just you then?"

France ties a garter over the left knee carefully with a soft chuckle. "The livery procession has been gone for over a hundred years now, little master." he takes a tie for the next. "Or perhaps I should say for some of us."

"This is _my_ world France. This room, this house, this little bit of nothing so whatever I choose to do with that-"

"_Non._" He ties the left and takes up the breeches. Austria looks sharply down at him for the first time directly. France keeps his focus on Austria stepping in one foot and then another. "This is not a world, Roderich. This is a tomb." Beneath his knuckles lightly brushing up long legs Austria is tense as he stares hard to the paintings on the walls, the heavy drapes, the massive canopied bed behind them drawing the shirt between his legs allowing France to tuck it in.

"Nonetheless," he says tightly. "Nonetheless," he grits out when France's fingers slowly, carefully fasten each brass button, "it is _mine_." Austria pulls away from him grabbing the cravat from the chair back. "Stay there. I can do this myself."

"You alone, little master?" France remains kneeling, hands on his thighs, blue eyes a study of the white flowers on the ancient rug beneath him.

"Sometimes Mr. Fischer graces us with his presence."

"Us?" France laughs softly at that while Austria pulls the stiff waistcoat on. "The royal 'we' as _rosbif_ would say?"

"There is no 'we' only I. I, and those who chose to stay here in this tomb as you call it." Austria sits on the cushioned seat reaching for his boots. "Did you think Gupta's people were the only ones to bury their servants alive with them?"

"Gilbert told me you feared being alone more than anything," he says softly looking still towards an indefinable something. Austria purses his lips tight, fingers on the soft leather cuff as if he would pull it apart stuck still.

"Since when do you discuss me with that man?"

"I've always discussed my problems with Gilbert," he replies offhandedly turning back around. He doesn't look up at Austria but instead to the boots.

"Is that what I am now? A problem to be resolved?"

France moves Austria's hands away and takes the left boot.

"As much as I am nothing but a servant to the needs of the little master." Austria halts half to putting his foot in the boot. He blinks, lips parting, hesitant, pulling his foot back, pulling his knee to his chest, a nervous child.

"That's not... I never..." His toes curl into the seat. France sits back on his heels looking up. He says nothing as Austria's fingers hold his knee harder, as hands shake. Austria's forehead presses to his knee head turning as if he could grind every memory out with each painful twist. France hears his breaths pick up, hears the clench of jaw. He looks down turning the shoe over a few times, gently caressing the worn leather. He stops when Austria speaks again. "There was a time..." he hears the swallow. He hears the swallow again. "There was a time when Ludwig would have killed you for touching me." His fingers take hold of the fabric of his breeches, twisting it, as if he could pull every bit of it apart into a million bitter threads. "There was a time when Ludwig would have _killed_ you just for looking at me!" His foot slams back down to the ground, hands twining in his hair hard as he screams the words at France.

France watches the sole of the shoe and then that stockinged foot.

"There was, once," he agrees softly. "As there was once a time when Roderich would have clawed his way out of wheelchair with broken fingers... broken legs... broken back to go him." He moves to slip the boot on. Austria allows him wordlessly. France takes the other. "But I think those men are long gone now..." He takes the right boot and puts it on standing slowly, elegantly. "Are they not?" France walks in front of the mirror taking a look at his own reflection as if seeing himself for the first time in a long time. "I cut myself with the razor this morning." His fingers ghost over his chin. "Ah but you would not know it to look at me, would you?" The skin is smooth. Austria watches him, hands on his knees. He's forgotten in that moment how to stand.

"You didn't have to..." He looks back down. "You didn't have to do that." France absently fusses with his hair.

"It is easier, of course."

"What?"

"It is easier for you to be with me. It is easier for him to be with Feli." He turns back to Austria. "The truth, she is a hateful thing, no?"

"The truth?" Austria laughs bitterly. "And what truth would that be, Francis? The truth that Ludwig cannot stand to look at me anymore? The truth that his boss... that all of them cannot even stand to see me there? That my presence is nothing but a painful reminder of that time? That sometimes I hate my own people for so easily turning away from him? Is that what you want to hear, Francis!?" He stands taking two steps to France. "Just what do you want from me?!" France doesn't answer him immediately but instead takes out his silver cigarette case from his back pocket. The black denim fits snugly beneath the lazy gray t shirt and Austria sees for the first time the modern model stepped off the billboard.

"You might start with a light," France answers holding up the _Gaulois _looking at Austria with an unreadable expression. "A light... I think that is what you can give me if nothing else."

"Nothing else?" Austria has already turned away to the nightstand unable to look at him any longer.

"There is nothing else I want that you can give me, little master."

Austria goes to the nightstand and hands him a small silver piece with a metal ball on top.

"This was a gift from His Highness," is all he says in answer. France takes it carefully. "If you don't know how to use it-"

"I know," France interrupts him not unkindly as he takes the ball and removes the wick. "But I fear I am unpracticed." Austria grabs it back immediately.

"Then for God's sake don't break it. Here." He strikes the light easily, and France leans in with a slow look up to Austria's face. Austria puts the light out and recaps it looking quickly away once more.

"If there is nothing I can give you, then why do you stay?" France takes a long drag of the cigarette holding it preciously between his fingers watching the faint glow of the tip. He hands it to Austria without being asked, their fingers brushing for a fraction of an eternal second. Austria's eyes flicker between their hands and France's eyes. He brings the cigarette to his mouth thoughtfully as France speaks.

"My light... in the darkness," he says with a shake of his head. "as faint as she may be. She is there, nonetheless."


	6. Drowning

Note: this whole story has been like half experiment and it moves again towards angst or something else. I think this is the most Germany has appeared if you can call it that. Anyhoo thanks for reading and C&C always welcome!

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><p>He is dripping water when he comes back to France. Austria had left him seated idly on a folded out wooden chair, magazine on his lap, sunglasses perched impractically atop his head- for the aesthetic effect he'd declared as if such a thing should be obvious. France is not seated now, but rather is standing, sandals sinking into hot sand as he holds out a large red white and blue towel. Austria frowns as he approaches, that frown deepening to a scowl at the impassive expression on France's face, at the silence that greets him.<p>

"Surely, you've something to say," Austria snaps at him as he goes to take the towel with an equally churlish motion.

There is a spritz of water from his heavy, damp sleeve that is deflected with a clever wave of that towel. France, the matador turning with a wave of the large terry cloth grandly steps aside leaving Austria to nearly fall as he oversteps. But he does not. France catches him, arms wrapping around him mid turn. The large towel covered by two arms encircle him, and he's drawn tightly to France. He breathes in deeply, nearly starting to shiver even with the warm sun beating down upon them both. His clothes are soaked through, hair plastered to his face. He waits, arms stiffly at his sides, making no struggle in the strong embrace. Austria allows himself to smell France's cologne as his face is half forced to France's neck, Ralph Lauren's Romance clean and crisp mixing with roses and some lingering smoke in the shirt collar.

"Surely... you've something to say," Austria repeats with a lot less certainty as his eyes stare blankly out across the length of the nearly empty beach. His voice is hardly above a whisper as he watches a young couple helping their child to build a sandcastle away from the water. He doesn't allow his head to turn any further than that.

"I thought you did not know how to swim, little master," France half breathes into his hair as water begins to seep into the towel. Austria snorts, but it is without its usual certainty as his head stops twenty degrees from seeing the sound that his ears can still hear. His lower lip starts to curl inward as if he might bite it nervously. He swallows instead, letting his head rest on France's shoulder instead feeling his toes inside socks, inside shoes squelching miserably.

"I don't enjoy it. I didn't enjoy that..." He trails off uncertainly, eyes masochistically turning so that his peripheral vision might allow himself to glimpse those final few degrees. He sees a shock of auburn hair as whimsical as the tide. He hears the voice echoing, the accented din of a thousand moon faced imbeciles dancing through his head. But more than that he sees just the faint glimpse of a hand, a large hand, thick strong fingers reaching towards that bobbing mass. Austria shuts his eyes tightly and inhales deeply.

"This was a terrible idea," Austria whispers as those arm remain locked, unmoving, two strong pillars bracing him up.

"It was not my idea," France says, the most agreement that Austria will ever get out of him.

"And yet you agreed to it."

"As did you." Austria turns back, as far away as his head will allow him to turn from Germany's long suffering, blissfully, hatefully happy twirl of Italy around an equally hateful insipid circle.

"I am a fool, as you well know." His voice is tight.

"As am I," France replies without the slightest hint of humor. Austria moves his head just enough. He pulls back just enough so that he could turn, so that if he choose he could shift his eyes from France's half unbuttoned shirt to look at his mouth- to look at his eyes even- and allow his lips to be taken in a kiss. He stares even harder and simply licks his lips half imagining that act in another world but not daring to move.

"Ah, but of course," France's arms tighten but stop short of being unpleasant. "Not in front of Ludwig, _oui? _Not in front of the man you pulled from the undertow like the fabled siren." France seems to know better than to ask the what ifs that linger thick in the air.

"...sirens drag men to drown," Austria answers with a self reflective sobriety.

"Perhaps I mix my myths then."

"You know exactly what you're saying Francis."

"You know it would not have killed him if you-"

"If I what?" Austria snaps up. a full frontal face lock of eyes, Neuseidlersee cresting, the clouds reflecting darkly on it's mirrored surface. France meets that expression, the Seine not backing down either.

"If you let him go," France finishes simply, poetically as Austria catches his head mid turn to turning back to Germany out of an ancient instinct. He chews the inside of his cheek a back and forth sawing of his jaw until it hurts.

He had only allowed himself to pay Germany the barest of glances. He had been polite, cool, and he had made all the appropriate chastisements when Gilbert threatened to throw him in the water and when Italy tried to get him to wear some obscene swimming garb. He smiled at France, but not too terribly much, and most importantly he kept beneath the large striped parasol shaded, oddly enjoying the book France was reading from, thin shirt artfully half buttoned, with a pair of black capris on leg folded beneath him as he read. It was nice, ordinary nothing that he allowed himself pretending for those few hours to be human. And to pretend to be human was to forget that he was in fact not human, that Germany wasn't human, that Germany pulled beneath the depths of the waves was nothing that warranted more than a click of his tongue when they dredged his body and opened his eyes again to the world, reborn, rested, and repentant. But Austria had forgotten that. He'd forgotten that he wasn't human when he rushed headlong into the water, swimming into the undertow without a second thought._"...there was once a time when Roderich would have clawed his way out of wheelchair with broken fingers... broken legs... broken back to go him."_

Austria blinks, eyes burning for just a moment. He shakes his head.

"You wouldn't save me then, if I was drowning?" He realizes as he asks that France has still not released him. He also realizes that his cigarettes are likely ruined. France shakes his head, mouth still looking infuriatingly kissable.

"You are a strong swimmer, little master. Stronger than you realize."

"I need my glasses," Austria says suddenly, dumbly realizing that they're no longer on his face.

"You don't need them to see, Roderich." That nearly makes him turn, nearly makes him look back once more.

"It's not to see... but to be seen. Surely you of all people should know the difference." Austria makes a sudden study of France's neck, once again unusually clean shaven. "You know you don't have to keep... why on Earth did you agree to come out here anyway? It's far too early for your usual rounds of sexual harassment, there's hardly anywhere here."

"Perhaps it is you that I want to harass," France teases with a waggle of his eyebrows, hair falling into his face as if moved by the cherubim themselves. Austria glares at him when those arms finally let go.

"I don't know why I ever try to have a serious conversation with you."

He turns to the waves that crash hard and angry taking three steps towards them. Germany chooses that moment to do the same. Neither of them see each other.

"Perhaps then... there was something I needed to see," France offers after a long silence. Austria can tell he hasn't moved from where he stood.

"And have you seen it?" he asks the Atlantic as it laps against the Grand Plage. Again there is that silence, far from maddening but rather contemplative as Austria stares down at his wet shoes, fingers tentatively feeling his face, bereft of the silver spectacles. The towel still heavy around his shoulders his fingertips touch his temples self consciously.

"Yes, I have."


End file.
